Chapter 3: Processes

Chapter 3: Processes
 Process Concept
 Process Scheduling
 Operations on Processes
 Interprocess Communication
 Examples of IPC Systems
 Communication in Client-Server Systems
 Objectives
 To introduce the notion of a process -- a program in execution, which forms the basis of all
computation

 To describe the various features of processes, including scheduling, creation and termination,
and communication

 To describe communication in client-server systems

 Process Concept
 An operating system executes a variety of programs:
 Batch system – jobs
 Time-shared systems – user programs or tasks

 Textbook uses the terms job and process almost interchangeably

 Process – a program in execution; process execution must progress in sequential fashion

 A process includes:
 program counter
 stack
 data section
 The Process
 Multiple parts
 The program code, also called text section
 Current activity including program counter, processor registers
 Stack containing temporary data
 Function parameters, return addresses, local variables
 Data section containing global variables
 Heap containing memory dynamically allocated during run time
 Program is passive entity, process is active
 Program becomes process when executable file loaded into memory
 Execution of program started via GUI mouse clicks, command line entry of its name, etc
 One program can be several processes
 Consider multiple users executing the same program
Process in Memory
 Process State
 As a process executes, it changes state
 new: The process is being created
 running: Instructions are being executed
 waiting: The process is waiting for some event to occur
 ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a processor
 terminated: The process has finished execution
Diagram of Process State
 Process Control Block (PCB)
Information associated with each process
 Process state
 Program counter
 CPU registers
 CPU scheduling information
 Memory-management information
 Accounting information
 I/O status information
Process Control Block (PCB)
CPU Switch From Process to Process
 Process Scheduling

 Maximize CPU use, quickly switch processes onto CPU for time sharing
 Process scheduler selects among available processes for next execution on CPU
 Maintains scheduling queues of processes
 Job queue – set of all processes in the system
 Ready queue – set of all processes residing in main memory, ready and waiting to
execute
 Device queues – set of processes waiting for an I/O device
 Processes migrate among the various queues
 Process Representation in Linux
 Represented by the C structure task_struct

pid t pid; /* process identifier */

long state; /* state of the process */
unsigned int time slice /* scheduling information */
struct task struct *parent; /* this process’s parent */
struct list head children; /* this process’s children */
struct files struct *files; /* list of open files */
struct mm struct *mm; /* address space of this pro */
Ready Queue And Various
I/O Device Queues
Representation of Process Scheduling
 Schedulers

 Long-term scheduler (or job scheduler) – selects which processes should be brought into the
ready queue
 Short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler) – selects which process should be executed next and
allocates CPU
 Sometimes the only scheduler in a system
 Schedulers (Cont.)
 Short-term scheduler is invoked very frequently (milliseconds)  (must be fast)

 Long-term scheduler is invoked very infrequently (seconds, minutes)  (may be slow)

 The long-term scheduler controls the degree of multiprogramming

 Processes can be described as either:

 I/O-bound process – spends more time doing I/O than computations, many short CPU bursts
 CPU-bound process – spends more time doing computations; few very long CPU bursts
Addition of Medium Term Scheduling
 Context Switch
 When CPU switches to another process, the system must save the state of the old process and load
the saved state for the new process via a context switch.

 Context of a process represented in the PCB

 Context-switch time is overhead; the system does no useful work while switching
 The more complex the OS and the PCB -> longer the context switch

 Time dependent on hardware support

 Some hardware provides multiple sets of registers per CPU -> multiple contexts loaded at once
 Process Creation
 Parent process create children processes, which, in turn create other processes, forming a tree of
processes

 Generally, process identified and managed via a process identifier (pid)

 Resource sharing
 Parent and children share all resources
 Children share subset of parent’s resources
 Parent and child share no resources

 Execution
 Parent and children execute concurrently
 Parent waits until children terminate
 Process Creation (Cont.)
 Address space
 Child duplicate of parent
 Child has a program loaded into it

 UNIX examples
 fork system call creates new process
 exec system call used after a fork to replace the process’ memory space with a new program
Process Creation
C Program Forking Separate Process
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <studio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main()
{
pid_t pid;
/* fork another process */
pid = fork();
if (pid < 0) { /* error occurred */
fprintf(stderr, "Fork Failed");
return 1;
}
else if (pid == 0) { /* child process */
execlp("/bin/ls", "ls", NULL);
}
else { /* parent process */
/* parent will wait for the child */
wait (NULL);
printf ("Child Complete");
}
return 0;
}
A Tree of Processes on Solaris
 Process Termination
 Process executes last statement and asks the operating system to delete it (exit)
 Output data from child to parent (via wait)
 Process’ resources are deallocated by operating system

 Parent may terminate execution of children processes (abort)

 Child has exceeded allocated resources
 Task assigned to child is no longer required
 If parent is exiting
 Some operating system do not allow child to continue if its parent terminates
– All children terminated - cascading termination
 Interprocess Communication
 Processes within a system may be independent or cooperating
 Cooperating process can affect or be affected by other processes, including sharing data
 Reasons for cooperating processes:
 Information sharing
 Computation speedup
 Modularity
 Convenience
 Cooperating processes need interprocess communication (IPC)
 Two models of IPC
 Shared memory
 Message passing
Communications Models
 Cooperating Processes
 Independent process cannot affect or be affected by the execution of another process

 Cooperating process can affect or be affected by the execution of another process

 Advantages of process cooperation

 Information sharing
 Computation speed-up
 Modularity
 Convenience
 Producer-Consumer Problem

 Paradigm for cooperating processes, producer process produces information that is

consumed by a consumer process
 unbounded-buffer places no practical limit on the size of the buffer
 bounded-buffer assumes that there is a fixed buffer size
 Bounded-Buffer –
Shared-Memory Solution

 Shared data

#define BUFFER_SIZE 10
typedef struct {
...
} item;

item buffer[BUFFER_SIZE];
int in = 0;
int out = 0;
 Solution is correct, but can only use BUFFER_SIZE-1 elements
 Bounded-Buffer – Producer

while (true) {
/* Produce an item */
while (((in = (in + 1) % BUFFER SIZE count) == out)
; /* do nothing -- no free buffers */
buffer[in] = item;
in = (in + 1) % BUFFER SIZE;
}
Bounded Buffer – Consumer

while (true) {
while (in == out)
; // do nothing -- nothing to consume

// remove an item from the buffer

item = buffer[out];
out = (out + 1) % BUFFER SIZE;
return item;
}
 Interprocess Communication –
Message Passing
 Mechanism for processes to communicate and to synchronize their actions
 Message system – processes communicate with each other without resorting to shared variables
 IPC facility provides two operations:
 send(message) – message size fixed or variable
 receive(message)
 If P and Q wish to communicate, they need to:
 establish a communication link between them
 exchange messages via send/receive
 Implementation of communication link
 physical (e.g., shared memory, hardware bus)
 logical (e.g., logical properties)
 Implementation Questions
 How are links established?
 Can a link be associated with more than two processes?
 How many links can there be between every pair of communicating processes?
 What is the capacity of a link?
 Is the size of a message that the link can accommodate fixed or variable?
 Is a link unidirectional or bi-directional?
 Direct Communication
 Processes must name each other explicitly:
 send (P, message) – send a message to process P
 receive(Q, message) – receive a message from process Q

 Properties of communication link

 Links are established automatically
 A link is associated with exactly one pair of communicating processes
 Between each pair there exists exactly one link
 The link may be unidirectional, but is usually bi-directional
 Indirect Communication
 Messages are directed and received from mailboxes (also referred to as ports)
 Each mailbox has a unique id
 Processes can communicate only if they share a mailbox

 Properties of communication link

 Link established only if processes share a common mailbox
 A link may be associated with many processes
 Each pair of processes may share several communication links
 Link may be unidirectional or bi-directional
 Indirect Communication
 Operations
 create a new mailbox
 send and receive messages through mailbox
 destroy a mailbox

 Primitives are defined as:

send(A, message) – send a message to mailbox A
receive(A, message) – receive a message from mailbox A
 Indirect Communication
 Mailbox sharing
 P1, P2, and P3 share mailbox A
 P1, sends; P2 and P3 receive
 Who gets the message?

 Solutions
 Allow a link to be associated with at most two processes
 Allow only one process at a time to execute a receive operation
 Allow the system to select arbitrarily the receiver. Sender is notified who the receiver was.
 Synchronization
 Message passing may be either blocking or non-blocking

 Blocking is considered synchronous

 Blocking send has the sender block until the message is received
 Blocking receive has the receiver block until a message is available

 Non-blocking is considered asynchronous

 Non-blocking send has the sender send the message and continue
 Non-blocking receive has the receiver receive a valid message or null
 Buffering
 Queue of messages attached to the link; implemented in one of three ways
1. Zero capacity – 0 messages
Sender must wait for receiver (rendezvous)
2. Bounded capacity – finite length of n messages
Sender must wait if link full
3. Unbounded capacity – infinite length
Sender never waits
 Examples of IPC Systems - POSIX
 POSIX Shared Memory
 Process first creates shared memory segment
segment id = shmget(IPC PRIVATE, size, S IRUSR | S IWUSR);
 Process wanting access to that shared memory must attach to it
shared memory = (char *) shmat(id, NULL, 0);
 Now the process could write to the shared memory
sprintf(shared memory, "Writing to shared memory");
 When done a process can detach the shared memory from its address space
shmdt(shared memory);
 Examples of IPC Systems - Mach
 Mach communication is message based
 Even system calls are messages
 Each task gets two mailboxes at creation- Kernel and Notify
 Only three system calls needed for message transfer
msg_send(), msg_receive(), msg_rpc()
 Mailboxes needed for commuication, created via
port_allocate()
 Examples of IPC Systems – Windows XP
 Message-passing centric via local procedure call (LPC) facility
 Only works between processes on the same system
 Uses ports (like mailboxes) to establish and maintain communication channels
 Communication works as follows:
 The client opens a handle to the subsystem’s connection port object.
 The client sends a connection request.
 The server creates two private communication ports and returns the handle to one of them to
the client.
 The client and server use the corresponding port handle to send messages or callbacks and to
listen for replies.
Local Procedure Calls in Windows XP
 Communications in Client-Server Systems
 Sockets

 Remote Procedure Calls

 Pipes

 Remote Method Invocation (Java)

 Sockets
 A socket is defined as an endpoint for communication

 Concatenation of IP address and port

 The socket 161.25.19.8:1625 refers to port 1625 on host 161.25.19.8

 Communication consists between a pair of sockets

Socket Communication
 Remote Procedure Calls
 Remote procedure call (RPC) abstracts procedure calls between processes on networked systems

 Stubs – client-side proxy for the actual procedure on the server

 The client-side stub locates the server and marshalls the parameters

 The server-side stub receives this message, unpacks the marshalled parameters, and performs the
procedure on the server
Execution of RPC
 Pipes
 Acts as a conduit allowing two processes to communicate

 Issues
 Is communication unidirectional or bidirectional?
 In the case of two-way communication, is it half or full-duplex?
 Must there exist a relationship (i.e. parent-child) between the communicating processes?
 Can the pipes be used over a network?
 Ordinary Pipes
 Ordinary Pipes allow communication in standard producer-consumer style

 Producer writes to one end (the write-end of the pipe)

 Consumer reads from the other end (the read-end of the pipe)

 Ordinary pipes are therefore unidirectional

 Require parent-child relationship between communicating processes

Ordinary Pipes
 Named Pipes
 Named Pipes are more powerful than ordinary pipes

 Communication is bidirectional

 No parent-child relationship is necessary between the communicating processes

 Several processes can use the named pipe for communication

 Provided on both UNIX and Windows systems

End of Chapter 3